Shelley Powers wrote:
I am still unsure whether collaboration is actually useful in terms
of the current procedural regime:
If i write a spec that only has changes to the alt section i would
think it more likely to gain support, than if it also included RDFa,
thus i am discouraged from collaboration.
I consider a much fairer and more manageable way to handle it would
be to allow people to write modified sections or subsection and then
put each section up to a vote if consensus cannot be achieved.
if there is not a section or subsection that has a draft alternative
has been produced and there are no formal objections realted to it,
then it can be considered as having consensus and be left in the
draft for last call.
example:
a vote on 3 choices
ians image section
steves image section
person x's image section
which ever gains the most support is the one that goes into the FPWD
for last call.
another example:
manus RDFa section
ian's microdata section
both microdate and RDFa
which ever gains the most support is the one that goes into the FPWD
for last call.
then we could end up with a document that is the product of the W3C
HTML working group.
If that's how people want to proceed, I'm OK with that, with but one
minor reservation... ultimately there will need to to be somebody who
is willing and able to do the necessary integration. I gather that
Manu is willing to do that up to a point, but it would not surprise me
if he became considerably less enthusiastic about investing the time
if (for example) RDFa wasn't included.
I wouldn't worry too much about it at this point. If people want a
vote, there will be a vote. Even my opinion doesn't count for all
that much: for example, I would prefer a vote on a document that
contains tangible spec text for the table element including a summary
element, but people who are preparing the text of the vote apparently
want something else. If people agree to what they prepare, we will go
with that.
I think you misunderstand what people are willing to propose. For
instance, I imagine those folk wanting to put a @summary vote out to be
willing to put out tangible text for that section, but they don't want
to have to duplicate the entire document just to propose that one
section. You see? That makes no sense. There's a reason sections have
identifiers.
If you look at the change log for action 128, you will see that it
briefly had a status of pending review:
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/actions/128?changelog
The reason why it was listed as such (again briefly) is that it was felt
that sending a draft to the chairs merited such a status. The status
now reads "open" as the draft vote is not available for public review.
Suffice it to say that I have seen a draft, and it does not match what
you imagine, in that it is not tangible spec text. But as I said, if
that draft ends up being what people agree to vote on, I will
accommodate and facilitate.
As to "That makes no sense", I have a concrete counter example, provided
by Manu:
http://dev.w3.org/html5/rdfa/Overview.html#rdfa
I grant that such an approach might not make sense in all cases. In
other cases, it has the potential to answer a lot of questions before
they are even asked. I maintain that it isn't overly difficult to do
(though I imagine that Manu has ideas now on how to streamline the
process even further), and that by pro-actively answering a number of
unasked questions, products produced as a result of such an approach
might attract more support.
In any case, not a requirement, but something to consider. Or not.
As for editing, I don't think there would be that much of a problem
finding someone willing to integrate the different vote results. But you
left something out: Ian Hickson is the only "official" editor of the
only "official" version of HTML 5. (Ignoring the no longer active Apple
co-author.)
So, how do you get to A from B, Sam? How do you get from our existing
state today, to one where these supposedly alternative sections are
voted on, and then there needs to be integration of the voting result
made by _someone_, when the only person who is _allowed_ editing access
is Ian Hickson?
It gets fuzzy after that point. Sorry if I'm asking for what's obvious
to everyone else, but could you give me the precise steps to take, from
prep of voting text, to vote, to incorporation into existing working
draft based on your preferred approach (camera ready spec text)?
Anybody who wishes to edit can arrange to do so:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/2009Jul/0018.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/2009Jul/0017.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf/2009Jul/0019.html
Once a tangible work product (be it a completely independent spec or a
"mashup") is produced and a minimum level of diverse public support is
demonstrated, a vote can be called for[1], and the work product (and by
implication, the editor that produced it) can be viewed as "official".
--
with regards
Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG Europe
Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium
www.paciellogroup.com <http://www.paciellogroup.com> | www.wat-c.org
<http://www.wat-c.org>
Web Accessibility Toolbar -
http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html
- Sam Ruby
Shelley
- Sam Ruby
[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2009Jul/0135.html
